WOODS FIKED BY LIGHTNING. 37 



attaching severe penalties to the firing of the native forests; 

 but in a new country they are mere empty threats. As a 

 fact in natural history, besides, it is interesting to know 

 that dry trees are sometimes fired by lightning, and, 

 therefore, that such, burnings of the woods must have 

 taken place from time to time from the most remote 

 periods. In explaining the peculiar character of the 

 surface-soil in many places, a knowledge of this tact may 

 not be without its use. Land of ordinary fertility must 

 be impoverished by frequent burnings, if the mineral 

 matter derived from the soil was every time carried away 

 by the winds, and the organic matter in the soil itself 

 was at the same time consumed by the fire. 



Oct. 19. A few miles above Douglastown, the Mira- 

 michi divides into two branches, where what is called the 

 North-west Miramichi flows into the main river from 

 the left. At the junction, this branch almost equals the 

 main stream in width ; but after an ascent often or twelve 

 miles it rapidly narrows, becomes shallow, and splits up 

 into numerous tributaries. I made an excursion of 

 twenty miles to-day up this North-west Miramichi, in 

 company with Mr Rankin and Mr Henry Cunard, as far 

 as a hay-farm belonging to the latter gentleman. The 

 land in general was light, poor, sandy, or stony, till we 

 reached the mouth of the north-west Mill-stream. Beyond 

 this it improved into a light reddish loam. Between 

 the Little and the Great Sevogle two feeders of the 

 north-west branch which come in from the west a flat 

 of good alluvial land, about 5000 acres in extent, 

 stretches along the main river. Through it the river 

 winds, forming islands here and there, on which patches 

 of alder-swamp are seen, and magnificent American elms 

 skirting their banks, and farm-houses at various dis 

 tances. A portion of this flat land is under arable cul 

 ture, but most of it is kept in meadow for the winter s 

 hay. Mr Canard s farm was of this kind : it was cut ior 



